PeelPioneers to raise funding of €10 million to build peel processing factory in the Netherlands.

PeelPioneers, a Den Bosch, The Netherlands-based developer of a technology used to provide a 100% circular solution for orange peel, announced securing funding of €10 million ($11.8M).

The money is backed by an investment consortium consisting of Rabobank, the Netherlands Ministry of Economic Affairs (Top Sector Energy Grant), het Nationale Groenfonds, the Brabant Development Agency, European Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF), and initial investor DOEN Participaties.

PeelPioneers, founded in 2016 by CEO Sytze van Stempvoort, Bas van Wieringen and Lindy Hensen, is a fully circular peel collector as it processes orange peels, which would otherwise be incinerated, into functional ingredients for the food industry.

PeelPioneers technology provides a circular solution for these peels that in most countries end up getting destroyed in an incinerator. The company extracts orange oil and other raw materials that food manufacturers use in products such as beer, lemonade, muffins and chocolate. The raw materials that PeelPioneers derives from orange peels are also sold to manufacturers of non-food products such as detergents and cosmetics.

The company opened an orange peel factory in 2018 in Son (Holland) and plans to open five more in Europe.

Prior to this round, in 2018, PeelPioneers raised €1M.